Different women have different hobbies. Knitting, gardening... Taxidermy? The Washington Post's Melanie Kaplan tried her hand at critter sculpting one weekend in Duncannon, PA. Her "taxidermy sensei," Gary Bruch, used to make ice sculptures. Now he creates replicas and skin mounts of fish. Ms. Kaplan spent the first day airbrushing. "I'd never used an airbrush before, and working my fingers to hit that sweet spot of air and paint reminded me of learning how to drive stick shift, only harder," she writes. In the end, she "scraped the last bits of paint off my rainbow trout's glass eye, took a step back and gasped. 'It looks so real.'" Somehow, since antlers are the new skulls and there's tons of animal-themed stuff being sold for the home, a do-it-yourself lesson kinda makes sense, especially since there wasn't actually handling of a dead fish involved (Ms. Kaplan worked from a photo). We want a life-like raven to perch on our desk. [WaPo]